Queer allows Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey to give awards worthy performances that make Luca Guadagnino’s artist direction an intoxicating experience, but the confused, rushed and poorly paced narrative squanders any of the film’s potential. 

 

Fans of Luca Guadagnino are in for a treat this year. Only a few months after his last film Challengers hit theatres and introduced viewers to a sweaty and sexy world of competitive tennis, Guadagnino is already back with his next film, this time adapting William S. Burroughs semi-autobiographical novel Queer. From the second the film begins, it’s unequivocally a Guadagnino film with its beautiful artistic vision, while Daniel Craig and especially Drew Starkey deliver excellent performances, but this is not the film viewers will expect it to be. Instead of the racy, homosexual romance featuring explicit sex scenes that audiences are expecting, it’s a quiet meditation on loneliness and drug addiction, that attempts to juggle tonally different storylines that creates for a thematically disorienting film that will leave audiences questioning what the aim of this story was.

 

As with all of Guadagnino’s films, Queer is an artistic feast for all of the viewer’s senses. The cinematography captures the loneliness of Craig’s Lee as he wanders the streets of Mexico searching for companionship with a beauty that draws the audience into the world of Burrough’s novel. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, collaborating once again with Guadagnino following this year’s Challengers, have composed an atmospheric musical score that echoes Lee’s longing for connection that is the most intoxicating element of the film. Throw in some great needle drops, including one absolutely sublime use of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”, Queer is as excellently executed as all of Guadagnino’s previous films. 

 

Going into this awards season, lots of attention was being placed on Craig’s performance, and it is without question a great performance. Much like his quiet character who wanders the streets of Mexico City looking for connection, Craig embodies a melancholic stillness as he looks for companionship. Despite the tight knit and seemingly welcome gay community present in Mexico City, Lee chooses to forge his own path as he pursues an interest with the alluring young Eugene Allerton, played by Starkey, and it allows Craig to tap into a vulnerability that we don’t often see from him. Craig bares it all in his performance, both physically and figuratively, as he balances Lee’s self destructive drug addiction with his self-inflicted isolation in pursuit of a relationship that is evidently not being reciprocated. Leaving more unsaid with his performance creating a physical embodiment of loneliness that helps to create the heart of the film’s story. It's a great performance from Craig that showcases his range of an actor outside of the James Bond and Knives Out series, and while it’s not a career best performance from Craig, it’s unequivocally the rawest one we’ve seen from him that should propel him into the awards conversation. 

 

While the focus will be on Craig’s performance, it is Starkey who steals the film as Allerton. From the second he appears on screen, Starkey has an immediate allure and sex appeal that allows the audience to understand Lee’s instant attraction to him, only amplified by that Nirvana needle drop that begins booming on the cinema’s sound system as he appears in the nightclub in the film’s first act. The intense looks Starkey gives as Allerton captures Lee’s excitement and that of the viewer as there is a mystery to him, there is also a coldness to him that makes Lee’s pursuit of him a tragic one as it’s clear after their first night together that Allerton has no real interest in Starkey beyond killing time and to fulfill a desire with him for some adventure. It’s a striking performance that you can’t take your eyes off of, promising a great career ahead for Starkey as he continues to take on challenging and more complex roles. The supporting cast packs some serious talent with stars like Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman and Henry Zaga, all of whom are great, especially Schwartzman and Manville who are unrecognizable at first. But all of them have smaller roles with not much more than a scene or two, leaving the burden of carrying the film on Craig and Starkey, who do so with ease.